On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 02:54:52PM +0200, YAP wrote:
> What is 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF (128 bits) in decimal?  How go a
> head an calculate big numbers like this.

If you have Linux, the bc calculator is great for this sort of thing:

pete@gw:~$ bc
bc 1.06
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'.
ibase=16
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
340282366920938463463374607431768211455
quit
pete@gw:~$

It can work with arbitrarily large numbers, computing crazy stuff like
2^(2^16) works. 

I use it damn near constantly for low-level programming for stuff like
this:

pete@gw:~/d/meta/uuid$ bc
bc 1.06
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'.
obase=16
ibase=2
1011001000010111011111111110110111111001110010001001111110010110
B2177FEDF9C89F96
quit
pete@gw:~/d/meta/uuid$

The arbitrary bases feature is almost great... Except in the above
example the obase=16 *has* to be above the ibase=2 See, if I use
ibase=2 first, my obase command is interpreted with it's argument... in
binary.

-- 
pete@petertodd.ca http://www.petertodd.ca
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